Question #976
A company uses AWS Elastic Beanstalk to deploy applications across multiple environments. During peak traffic periods, additional instances are automatically scaled up but sometimes fail to scale down afterward, leading to higher costs. The finance team notices unexpected increases in the monthly AWS bill and wants to automate detection of such incidents. The solution must identify the specific resources causing cost spikes and notify the DevOps team immediately.
Which solution will meet these requirements?
Enable AWS Budgets with a monthly cost threshold. Use AWS Cost Explorer to analyze historical costs and set a CloudWatch alarm for budget breaches. Configure Amazon SNS to notify the DevOps team when the alarm triggers.
Enable AWS Budgets with a monthly cost threshold based on the average of the past 6 months. Use AWS Trusted Advisor to identify underutilized resources. Configure Amazon SNS to notify the DevOps team when the budget is exceeded.
Use AWS Cost Anomaly Detection to create a cost monitor with a monitor type of Linked account. Set up a subscription to send real-time alerts to the DevOps team when anomalies exceed a specified variance threshold.
Use AWS Cost Anomaly Detection to create a cost monitor with a monitor type of AWS services. Set up a subscription to send real-time alerts to the DevOps team when anomalies exceed a specified variance threshold.
Explanation
Option D is correct because AWS Cost Anomaly Detection is specifically designed to monitor spending patterns and detect unexpected cost increases. By setting the monitor type to 'AWS services,' the solution identifies the exact AWS service (e.g., EC2 instances in Elastic Beanstalk) responsible for the cost spike. Real-time alerts via Amazon SNS ensure immediate notification to the DevOps team.
Other options are incorrect because:
- A: AWS Budgets and CloudWatch alarms notify when costs exceed a threshold but do not identify the specific resources causing the spike.
- B: Trusted Advisor identifies underutilized resources but does not provide real-time anomaly detection or pinpoint the service causing the cost spike.
- C: Using 'Linked account' as the monitor type tracks overall account spending but does not isolate the specific AWS service responsible.
Key Points:
1. AWS Cost Anomaly Detection provides granular insights into cost anomalies by service.
2. Real-time alerts via SNS enable immediate action.
3. Monitor type 'AWS services' is critical to identifying the root cause of cost spikes.
Answer
The correct answer is: D